Below the reader will find excerpts from an article by Ven. Seraphim of Platina, The Goal of Dialogue with Non-Christian Religions, Orthodox Word, 1972, Vol. 8, #1, (42). As Orthodox Christians we may well have hoped that the topic would have lost its significance, and that Orthodox would have repented of their dabbling in communion with other religions. But, alas, it is not so. If anything, the spiritual issues touched on by St. Seraphim have only become worse.

The Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, has become (within Orthodoxy) a forefront promoter of dialogue with “non-Christian” religions. Together with Archbishop Elpidophoros of the GOARCH, the EP seems to be the vanguard of preaching and offering wholehearted endorsement of the heresies of Ecumenism and Perennialism. In the below article, Ven. Seraphim makes it clear that those who actively embrace non-Christian ecumenism are serving the “god of this world,” and not the Lord Jesus. In fact, he states that such are “no longer Christians in any sense at all.” I’ll let you, the reader, connect the dots.

The headlong pursuit of a “dialogue with non-Christian” religions is ultimately of demonic inspiration. In our days, it has moved well beyond even the confines of “dialogue” into open and clear “prayer” with a “non-Christian religions.” The goal is the liquidation of the Orthodox Faith (as if ultimately possible).

It should be self-evident that Orthodox Christians are called to live, as much as possible, in a brotherly way with other people, religious and nonreligious. But this is something very different from the current agenda of Ecumenism, for it seek to homogenize the various religions into one new global religion (of which the Pope of Rome is jockeying to be the head). It seeks to teach that “all roads lead to heaven” but many of us cannot see it because of the “prejudice that blocks your view.”

The agenda will only continue to advance, as there seems to be no repentance at all from those running full speed after it. But let us flee from those false teachers and let us hearken to the words of a prophet of our times, St. Seraphim of Platina.

Begin article –

As an answer to the question of the possibility of a “dialogue” of Orthodox Christianity with the various non-Christian religions … the Orthodox Church has always taught: that Orthodox Christians do not at all have the “same God” as the so-called “monotheists” who deny the Holy Trinity; that the gods of the pagans are in fact demons; and that the experiences and powers which the pagan ‘gods’ can and do provide are satanic in nature. All this in no way contradicts the words of St. Peter, that God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that fearth Him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him (Acts. 10:34-35); or the words of St. Paul, that God in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14:17). Those who live in the bondage of satan, the prince of this world (John 12:31), in darkness which is unenlightened by the Christen Gospel – are judged in the light of that natural testimony of God which every man may have, despite this bondage.

For the Christian, however, who has been given God’s Revelation, no “dialogue” is possible with those outside of the Faith. Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? … Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord (II Cor. 6:14-17). The Christian calling is rather to bring the light of Orthodox Christianity to them, even as St. Peter did to the God-fearing household of Cornelius the Centurion (Acts 10:34-48), In order to enlighten their darkness and join them to the chosen flock of Christ’s Church.

How then are we to look upon the “dialogue with non-Christian religions” which is presently gaining momentum and drawing into its sphere not merely “liberal” Protestants and Roman Catholics, but more and more “Orthodox” theologians as well? … This “dialogue” has been considerably accelerated …

Let us look at the “theology” and the goal of this accelerating “dialogue with non-Christian religions,” and see how it differs from “Christian” ecumenism that has prevailed up to now.

“Christian” ecumenism at its best may be seen to represent a sincere and understandable error on the part of Protestants and Roman Catholics – the error of failing to recognize that the visible Church of Christ already already exists, and they are outside it. The “dialogue with non-Christian religions,” however, is something quite different, representing rather a conscious departure from even that part of genuine Christian belief and awareness which some Catholics and Protestants retain. It is the product, not of simple human “good intentions,” but rather of a diabolic “suggestion” which can capture only those who are no longer Christians in any sense at all, but already pagans: worshippers of the god of this world, satan (II Cor. 4:4), and followers of whatever intellectual fashion this powerful god is capable of inspiring.

“Christian” ecumenism relies for its support upon vague but nonetheless real feelings of “common Christianity” which is shared by many who do not think or feel too deeply about the Church, and it aims somehow to “build” a church comprising all such indifferent “Christians.” But what common support can the “dialogue with non-Christians” rely on? On what possible ground can there be any kind of unity, however loose, between Christians and those who merely do not know Christ, but – as is the case with all the present-day representatives of non-Christian religions who are in contact with Christianity – decisively reject Christ? Those like Metropolitan Georges Khodre of Lebonon,¹ lead the avant-garde of Orthodox apostates, speak of the “spiritual riches” and “authentic spiritual life” of non-Christian religions, but it is only by doing great violence to the meaning of words and by reading his own fantasies into other people’s experience that he can bring himself to say: “It is Christ alone who is received as light when grace visits a Brahmin, a Buddhist, or a Moslem reading his own scriptures,” or: “Every martyr for the truth, every man persecuted for what he believes to be right, dies in communion with Christ.” Certainly these people themselves would never say that it is “Christ” they receive or die for, and the idea of an “unconscious” confession or reception of Christ is against the very nature of Christianity. If a rare non-Christian does claim to have an experience of “Christ,” it can only be in the way which Swami Vivekananda describes: “We Hindus do not merely tolerate, we unite ourselves with every religion, praying in the mosque of the Mohammedan, worshipping before the fire of Zoroastrian, and kneeling to the cross of the Christian” – that is, as merely one of a number of equally valid “spiritual experiences.”

No: “Christ,” no matter how redefined or reinterpreted, cannot be the common denominator of the “dialogue with non-Christian religions,” but at best can only be added as an afterthought to a unity which is discovered somewhere else. The only possible common denominator among all religions is the totally vague concept of the “spiritual,” which indeed offers religious “liberals” almost unbounded opportunity for nebulous theologizing.

The address of Met. Georges Khodre to the Central Committee meeting at the WCC at Addis Ababa in January, 1971, may be take as an early, experimental attempt to set forth such a “spiritual” theology of the “dialogue with non-Christian religions.” In raising the question at to “whether Christianity is so inherently exclusive of other religions as has generally been proclaimed up to now,” the Metropolitan, apart from his few rather absurd “projections” of Christ into non-Christian religions, has one main point: it is the “Holy Spirit,” conceived as totatlly independent of Christ and His Church, that is really the common denominator of all the world’s religions. Referring to the prophecy that I will pour our My Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2:28), the Metropolitan states, “This must be taken to mean a Pentecost which is universal from the very first … The advent of the Spirit in the world is not subordinated to the Son … The Spirit operates and applies his energies in accordance with his own economy and we could, from this angle, regard the non-Christian religions as points where his inspiration is a work.” We must, he believes, “develop an ecclesiology and a missiology in which the Holy Spirit occupies a supreme place.”

All of this, of course, constitutes a heresy which denies the very nature of the Holy Trinity and has no aim but to undermine and destroy the whole idea and reality of the Church of Christ. Why, indeed, should Christ have established a Church if the Holy Spirit acts quite independently, not only of the Church, but of Christ Himself? Nonetheless, this heresy is here still present rather tentatively and cautiously, doubtlessly with the aim of testing the response of other Orthodox “theologians” before proceeding more categorically ….

No Orthodox Christian can “open his heart” to any spirit if he is not absolutely certain that it is of God; and if it is not of God, then the appeal to join this movement can only be an attempt to corrupt and destroy the souls of Orthodox Christians. The issue is literally a matter of spiritual life or death.

1A promoter of the heresy of ecumenism at the time when this article was written, today we could list people like Archbishop Epidophoros of GOARCH